1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sound identification or speech recognition technique, and, in particular, to a method and system for matching a sound or voice pattern.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a speech recognition system, fast response is very important. If processing is initiated for identification of sound upon completion of inputting of the sound produced, the response becomes slow because it takes some time to process the sound data. Thus, it has been proposed to initiate the sound processing after inputting a certain amount of sound data as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application No. 59-48333. According to the method disclosed in the above-identified application, upon inputting of sound data for a predetermined time interval from the beginning thereof, similar patterns are selected from reference patterns based on the sound data so far inputted, and, then, upon completion of inputting of the sound data, the entire sound data is compared with the selected similar patterns to find out which of the selected similar patterns matches best with the sound data inputted. However, if the number of the reference patterns becomes larger, it takes more time to carry out selection of similar patterns from the reference patterns, so that there is a possibility that the selection of similar patterns is still in progress even if the inputting of sound data has already been completed. Thus, the method disclosed in the above-identified application still needs to be improved in order for that method to be practically applicable.